Overheard

Spontaneous Wisdom of Alcoholics Anonymous Members overheard at meetings

1. It’s not old behavior if I’m still doing it.
2. If you’re looking to have an image in AA, look around at the meetings you go to and look at whom you’re trying to impress.
3. An alcoholic is a person who wants to be held while he’s isolating.
4. Sobriety is the leading cause of relapse.
5. A treatment center is where you go and pay $15,000 to find out that AA meetings are free.
6. The idea that alcoholics, drug addicts, sex addicts, overeaters, smokers, etc., etc., should all just go to AA meetings because a disease, is a disease, is a disease was started by a treatment center that only had one van.
7. This is a ‘One Day at a Time’ program.  If you are clean and sober today, you are tied for first place in AA.
8. If drinking is interfering with your work, you’re probably a heavy drinker.  If work is interfering with your drinking, you’re probably an alcoholic.
9. I often obsessively pursue feeling good, no matter how bad it makes me feel.
10. When I was new, I didn’t think I had any obsessions until I started thinking about it.  Then it was all I could think about.
11. How come if alcohol kills millions of brain cells, it never killed the ones that made me want to drink?
12. From a newcomer reading the ‘Promises’ for the first time: “We will comprehend the word cemetery and we will know peace.”
13. Newcomer: How do I know how many meetings I should attend each week?  Old-timer: Gradually cut back until you drink.  Then you’ll know.
14. Resentments are like stray cats: if you don’t feed them, they’ll go away.
15. The difference between a problem drinker and an Alcoholic is that:
    1. When alcohol is taken away from the problem drinker, the problem goes away.
    2. When alcohol is taken away from the Alcoholic, the problem begins.
16. Before I came into AA, I was dead, but I did not know enough to lie down.
17. You don’t have to be sick to want to get well.  But if you don’t want to get well, you ARE sick.
18. I came into AA to save my ass, but soon found that my soul was attached to it.